The Red Zone

Dear zom,
An item you're watching is expiring soon. Don't let it get away.

Vintage quality pressed glass ships decanter
Current price: £8.99
End time: 28-Oct-2009, etc.

The kiss of death. A ten minute warning. £8.99. That is my bid. I am in "the red zone". What do I do? Do I enter a maximum bid to cover my intent? Maybe £15.00, just in case another bid comes along? 

Wait a minute. Another email, and it is not from ebay. It is a favoured client. Back to business. It is a reminder about thumbnails and back buttons for the web site. Hmm.  The thumbnails are straightforward. This back button thing has turned into a glacial problem. Still, it is less of a problem than ebay. I get called a geek occasionally about all this IT. Am I? ebay probably does not think so. I have organised ebay shops for people that do make money on ebay, but I have never even come close to winning a bid. Some geek.

9 minutes... 

 My bid is still good. ebay can wait. Right click, [reply]. "Real quick - on a tight schedule:
1. Thumbnails. I have had a bit of time to work on this on a couple of...etc. etc." [send]. It is not perfect news. Like so many emails, it is not perfect English, either. It is the truth, though.

5 minutes...

I like glass. I had a collection of 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century bottles once. I found them all myself in old country dumps and bric a brac shops when bottles were just curios and bottle collectors were just geeks. Blues, greens, plain, reds, browns, bubbles here, flaws there. Always the flaws. Some pieces had crooked necks. Others were just crooked. Therein lies the beauty. The beauty is the flaw, the mark of individuality, unless you are you are dealing with something like Waterford. Speaking of which, a Waterford Lismore ship's decanter just popped up on ebay. £75 below list price, and it has the round stopper I like: the new stoppers look like a Flash Gordon spaceship. AND it is up for sale on a "buy now" button. Is the seller off his rocker?

4 minutes...

I am still in pole position in the red zone. £8.99. The thing is, the decanter is not cut glass. Why do I want pressed glass in my house? But, £8.99. Even £15.00.... how can I go wrong? It is novel. Nothing unusual about its height. It is reassuringly heavy, too. If it was not for one detail it would be nothing more than a facsimile of something grander. It is the decanter's base diameter that distinguishes it. The base diameter is proportionally smaller than you would expect for a conventional ship's decanter. That is what makes this piece unusual. It has value.

3 minutes, 30 seconds...

Oh - there's Terry on Facebook. I wonder if Terry does better at ebay than I do. "Hello, Terry! Have you made it to the Doyt this season?....."


Hmm. In between short sentences with Terry I find another Waterford with my kind of stopper. The seller doesn't even know what he's selling. He is in for a pleasant surprise, no worries, and I bet his decanter will go for more than the other Waterford I'm watching on a "buy now". That "buy now" price is just too good. It won't last long at all. Will it last two minutes?  What a beautiful shape.

2 minutes...

£8.99. There are still no counter bids for the decanter - dare I say "my" decanter? Why aren't there any other bids? Is this not what I always wanted? What am I missing? Survey says the seller is good for her word. Well, it is pressed glass. ...So?  Pressed glass dates from any time after 1850. An American developed the process. Let's see. What else might there be? Let's open a new browser tab and key "pressed glass history". Yes. Pressed glass fell from grace with the rush to crystal from about 1910. Then, the Depression brought pressed glass back. If it is pressed, then I could be looking at about one hundred years of remarkably good condition. It could be much more contemporary too. Who cares at £8.99? Everyone must be looking at the crystal on ebay today. The reserve is just so low on this. What kind of margin does anyone make on £8.99?

1 minute... 

Still no bids. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, perhaps? If there was a counter bid I could be decisive, roll my sleeves up, and raise my maximum to £15.00. Maybe £20.00. No, not £20.00. There is £5.00 shipping to consider. Or, I could drop it and pick up the Waterford. Someone else would have to beat my £8.99 bid, though. But.... I have never won on ebay. Everybody bids against me. And this "buy now" Waterford guy.... He is nuts.  I do need a dishwasher. Do I? No. Yes. Wait a minute, I've been buying white goods/brown goods since May. Sod the dishwasher.

30 seconds...

I would not even look at this in a shop for £8.99. At £30 it would catch my attention, but I doubt I would want it. At £8.99, it would cost me more just to get myself to a bric a brac shop or a flea market or a garage sale just to buy it.

20 seconds...

Maybe a bedroom. I have a 21 year old Old Pulteney. Scotch. It took three months to track down. It needs a decanter, but not pressed glass. I need a Waterford for that. Could I put this on my fledgling bar with a Waterford? Uh, no. By itself, maybe. It has to go somewhere else. Maybe upstairs.

10 seconds... 

I am on the clock - in the red zone! I have never seen my bids run down the clock like this. I like ebay's clock. I wonder if it is written in PHP or ASP? A tick tock noise would be a winner. Not hard to do, a bit of a problem when multiple bids are in...  Shut up man. Concentrate! No wonder girls go off you. Remember that night at the White Horse when she said how you rambled.. HEY! Focus on the bid.... 4. And 3. And 2. And 1. And....

SOLD to IP adress 82.xxx.xxx.xxx.

At last - a "red zone" conversion. My first ever "win" on ebay in 7 or maybe even 8 years of bidding.  What do you think of my trophy? Cute, isn't it? Let's call it Art Deco. You won't see it on my bar, but you might see it in a bedroom, or sitting on the landing on the pine table I restored. It will always be worth more than £8.99 to me. It is probably more valuable to me than even a Waterford. My first "win" on ebay!


Pressed glass, certainly not cut. Age? I cannot answer that right now. Manufacturer? Who knows? There are a couple of air bubbles, flaws to a pro, but that is all right. Flaws, not perfections, attract me.

What about the Waterford Lismore ship's decanter? I think the inspiration for the brand is Lismore Castle, situated just a few miles from Waterford's base in Ireland. Maybe I am a geek after all. Who else would know that? I have a thing about glass, you see. And what of it? What would I know about, let me think, how about... buttons? Not a chance.


Sorry? I didn't catch what you sai... Ah. The Waterford. Well, it was for sale on a "buy now" basis at about £75 off list price. What would you do? Oh, that's right. You want to know what I did. Well, let me tell you. On second thoughts, no, I will not tell you. I am a tease. Vintage zom. In my case, I think that is a flaw, but perhaps not enough of one to make me a collector's item. At least you know where to look if I did get the Waterford.